


A Sea Of Millions

by tacotheshark



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-28 16:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/310042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacotheshark/pseuds/tacotheshark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/14213.html?thread=76312965#t76312965"><i>Prompt:</i></a> Everyone is born with the name of their soulmate on their hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sea Of Millions

John Watson's parents, upon his birth, had stared with perplexity as they looked into the palm of his right hand and, more specifically, the silver, shimmering letters written on it neatly. _Sherlock,_ the letters spelled, and how strange it was, the name of the man who would be John's soul mate. How strange, indeed.

Sherlock Holmes' parents, however, had been quite distressed at the silver lettering printed on the inside of the hand of their second son. _John,_ his hand read. How horrid, they thought, it must be to search for a single man in a sea of millions who all match perfectly the only description given.

And how horrid it was, and something Sherlock had always resented. In just about every year of his life he'd met a different John, and had fallen for a few quite hard.

The first time Sherlock had felt so strongly about one of the many Johns in his life was during his first year of high school. He had been paired up for a project with a boy named John Collins. John Collins was lovely, absolutely lovely as well as tremendously funny, and it wasn't very long at all before Sherlock had himself convinced that he was the John for whom Sherlock had been looking for all the fourteen years of his life.

Sherlock and John had been sitting together on a bench, at a park, chatting about everything teenagers chat about, when Sherlock found it a wonderful opportunity to try and hold John's hand. As he slipped his fingers into those of the other boy, he was met with a confused look as well as his first small glimpse of the name written on that hand: _Sarah._

Sherlock pulled his hand back as if he'd been shocked by an electric wire. "Sherlock, what are you doing?" John asked with his eyebrows raised, and Sherlock could only mutter apologies.

"Oh god, John, I'm so sorry, I'm so, so sorry."

"What's gotten into you?"

Sherlock held out his hand silently, suddenly terribly conscious of the name on it.

"Oh," John mumbled, tremendously awkward, all of a sudden. Sherlock drew his hand back slowly. "I'm I'm sorry for confusing you, I I guess."

"My fault," Sherlock spouted, panicky. John only nodded, almost numbly, in response.

At seventeen years old, Sherlock worked in a book shop with a boy named John Ross. John Ross was undeniably intelligent, a bit of a bookworm, and nothing at all like the small-minded rest of the population of which Sherlock had grown so bored. He was intriguing and creative, and Sherlock kept himself up many a night imagining how their married life would be. He came easily to the conclusion that it would be nothing short of glorious in every possible way.

Sherlock was glad, at least, to have caught sight of the inside of John's hand before he tried anything more than friendly. _David,_ it read, and as the letters reached Sherlock's eyes, despair spread throughout his body and a heaviness set in his broken heart.

The rest of the day was terrible for Sherlock, as he tried to explain time and time again to various people including John Ross that, no, nothing was wrong, that he was perfectly fine. He waited until he got home to truly wonder how he was ever going to find his John.

Sherlock was twenty years old, at university, and in bed under John Milton, the part-time barista at the Starbucks on campus.

As they lay together, after willing their selves and each other to be as calm and collected as they could, John spoke into the silence that had settled. "Sherlock, I've got to come clean to you about something." With that, he held up his hand, and written on it was, _Allison._

"Get out," was all Sherlock could say, and he hissed it with more rage than he'd ever imagined himself to be able to muster. Alone, he hugged his knees to his chest and prayed to a god he didn't quite believe in for his John to come and sweep him off his feet and away from all of this madness.

When Mike Stamford introduced Sherlock to an old friend of his, John Watson, Sherlock didn't pay much mind to the name, as he'd long trained himself not to.

He treated his new potential flat mate as he would if the man were a Frank, or a Robert, possibly. "Afghanistan or Iraq?" Sherlock asked, after naturally deducing that he had served in the military, and countless other facts about his life, from his limp, his phone, and his posture,. He found himself quite intrigued by John Watson, even as they'd only just met, but he tried with all his might not to let it get to him. There had been so many Johns, this was only another. Nothing different, nothing new. Nothing that could sprout the relationship that Sherlock so desperately craved.

"Is that it?" John Watson asked as Sherlock began to leave the room after spouting at John the details of the flat.

"Is that what?" was Sherlock's reply.

"We've only just met, and we're going to go look at a flat." John looked incredulous. Sherlock wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

"Problem?"

John cracked a smile, and it was absolutely beautiful, Sherlock decided. Still, he mustn't let himself get too carried away. This was just another John, just like all the others, and Sherlock had to remember that. "We don't know a thing about each other. I don't know where we're meeting, I don't even know your name."

"I know you're an army doctor and you've been invalided home from Afghanistan" Sherlock easily as well as eagerly took the opportunity to show off his intelligence, to stun the army doctor, who was very sufficiently stunned when his entire life story was told to him by someone he'd met not five minutes before. He was clearly impressed by Sherlock's deductions, possibly even more impressed by them than Sherlock was at the life story itself. "That's enough to be going on with, don't you think? The name's Sherlock Holmes-"

"Wait," says John Watson. "I'm sorry, what?"

This earns a perplexed look from Sherlock as he repeats, "Sherlock Holmes."

Suddenly, a grin broke out on the doctor's face that Sherlock was fairly sure could rival even the sun in its brightness and allure. "You're kidding."

Sherlock stepped back into the room from where he had been halfway out the door, and closed the door slowly behind him. "What are you talking about?"

In lieu of words, John eagerly held out his right hand, leaning on his cane with the left, and Sherlock swore he could have fainted when he saw the name on it. _Sherlock._

Sherlock had found himself glad he hadn't found his John earlier, as John Watson was certainly the only John for him.


End file.
